SARAWAK TARGETS ZERO 'SICK' PROJECTS BY YEAR END
KUCHING, June 20 (Bernama) -- The Sarawak government aims to have no ‘sick’ or critically delayed government projects in the state by the end of this year following its move to bring in rescue contractors.
Sarawak Deputy Minister of Infrastructure and Port Development (Infrastructure Development), Aidel Lariwoo said the appointment of rescue contractors has enabled ‘sick’ projects to be redeveloped, with some already ahead of their original completion schedule.
“One of the main reasons Sarawak has had many sick projects before is due to movement controls caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, with problems such as lack of foreign labour and an increase in prices of construction materials such as sand,” he said.
He was speaking to reporters after representing Deputy Premier of Sarawak, Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas to officiate the Physical Asset and Infrastructure Management Conference 2023 organised by Universiti Malaysia Sarawak and CWorks Technologies Sdn Bhd here today.
He said the increase in sand prices was caused by hikes in the price of diesel that are needed for sand dredgers and barges to operate, adding that government projects had also been disrupted due to this.
Aidel said the Marudi Bridge project in Miri Division was one of the projects that was affected during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the rescue contractor has successfully restored the project, which he added is expected to be completed in 2025.
-- BERNAMA
